Our Man in Camelot Page 4

Final confirmation beyond all doubt—and God bless you, Mrs Audley, ma’am.

  Audley gave a scornful grunt. But as things stood that might well include Mr and Mrs Mosby Singleton Sheldon as well as King Arthur, so the sooner that short-lived alliance was broken, the better.

  “Me neither,” said Mosby quickly. When it came to facts there was only one he was reasonably sure of, and although it had been planned to keep it for the second phase he judged now that it was the only bait that might recapture Audley. “But I do believe in Badon Hill.”

  “Badon?” Audley’s tone was different at once, edged not with disdain but with curiosity.

  The child on Faith’s lap stirred, stretched and opened her eyes.

  “What about Badon?” repeated Audley.

  Mosby met his stare steadily. “It’ud be one hell of a thing to find it—for sure.”

  “It would be interesting, certainly… But impossible now, short of a miracle.”

  Little Cathy looked around her, momentarily unsure of where she was until her mother’s arms tightened around her.

  “Mummy, I’m hungry,” she said loudly.

  Mosby grinned at her, then back at her father. “Come on up to our place tonight for drinks and I’ll show you something.”

  “What?”

  “A miracle, maybe.”

  II

  A YEAR OF proximity had sharpened Mosby’s awareness of Shirley’s meteorology; even before the front door had closed on Audley he sensed the fall in her barometer.

  “So now we don’t believe in King Arthur, huh?” she challenged him.

  He glanced at her quickly before reaching for the gear shift, confirming the storm warning. But for once he felt no inclination to come out of the weather. “Yep. As of now, he stinks.”

  “Just because Audley. doesn’t believe in him?”

  He let the car roll forward slowly. “You got it in one, Shirl honey.”

  “Great. And what if he believes the moon is made of green cheese?”

  “Then I should give the proposition very serious consideration. You want I should tell him he’s crazy?”

  “Is he crazy?”

  “What do you mean ‘is he crazy?’ So he recites poetry to his daughter and builds sandcastles and writes books on mediaeval history—“ Mosby broke off as he remembered the Englishman’s eyes behind the spectacle lenses. Cold eyes not easily to be forgotten. “You ask me, I think he’s a whole lot tougher than he talks. Which you pretty well told him to his face, I seem to recall.”

  “I don’t mean that…” She trailed off uncertainly as they broke through the last belt of woodland at the head of the valley which stretched down to the sea. He caught a glimpse of the grey-white facade of St Veryan’s halfway up the right-hand shoulder of the valley and beyond it the terrible black lines of jagged shark’s tooth rocks which stretched out into the ocean as continuations of the headland. Far beyond them, though deceptively close, Lundy Island stood up high out of the white-topped rollers.

  Lundy high, sigh of dry.

  What was frightening about this beautiful coastline was its contrast: on one side the little green fields snug behind their high banks, and on the other the hungry sea rolling endlessly against the land.

  “I don’t mean that,” Shirley repeated herself. “I know I’m supposed to be the dumb one, and you’ve read the books—“

  So that was it, of course. He ought to have allowed for that uncongenial role playing the devil with her temper.

  “—But at least I can read the titles. And I don’t see how people can write whole books about someone who doesn’t exist—according to Audley.”

  Mosby shook his head. “It isn’t as simple as that. And besides, we’re after Badon, not Arthur.”

  “But Harry Finsterwald said Badon was Arthur’s greatest victory. Now Audley says there was no such person—and you behave as though we’re still in business.”

  “You’re damn right, we’re still in business. You saw the way he sat up the moment I mentioned Badon?” Mosby looked at her quickly. “Harry Finsterwald may not know as much as he thinks he does, but someone’s got Audley figured right, that’s for sure. They supply the box of tricks to play the next act with, like they promised, and I think we can get him moving the way they want us to.”

  “But I still don’t see—“ She checked as the house came into full view; there was a large grey utility van parked beside Finsterwald’s little British Ford. “We have company.”

  Mosby relaxed as he read the ‘TV and Radio Repairs’ legend on the utility. “It’s okay. That’s Harry’s partner—he said to watch for the TV repairman, remember?”

  Shirley stared at the utility. “I wonder which one of them he is,” she murmured.

  Mosby grinned at her wryly. They had intermittently shared a private game of trying to spot the other members of the Special Operations Unit at Wodden, but they had been dead wrong about Harry Finsterwald so there was little chance that they’d be right about his partner.

  “Just so it’s not General Ellsworth himself, I couldn’t take that,” he murmured back. “He hates my non-combatant guts.”

  “So does Harry. Let’s face it, honey: you’re just not popular.”

  “Harry’s a creep—so’s General Ellsworth. They don’t sweat, neither of them. And you can’t trust a man who doesn’t sweat.” He reached for the door handle. “So long as they don’t like me I can’t be all bad.”

  He smiled to himself. She was right about Finsterwald taking an instant dislike to him, but it was an endearing blank spot in her understanding that she was quite unable to grasp the reason for it. And one of life’s smaller ironies, too: that to a man who fancied his looks and talents as much as Harry did it was not only an error but also an injustice which had turned her into Mrs Sheldon, and not Mrs Finsterwald.

  But it was a total stranger, or at least someone he could not instantly recognise from High Wodden, who greeted them in the hall of St Veryan’s.

  “Captain Sheldon—Mrs Sheldon. Good to meet you.” The stranger offered his hand to each of them in turn, Shirley first.

  Civilian manners. And hair longer than General Ellsworth permitted, military or civilian. But hair cut as expertly as the British tweed suit, and neither the hair nor the suit fitted the face: hair black and shiny as a raven’s wing and face swarthy as a Mexican bandit’s.

  “Howard Morris. UK Operations Control.” The voice was wrong too—anglicised mid-Atlantic, if not Ivy League. The man was a mass of contradictions.

  “Hi, Doc.” Harry Finsterwald appeared in the sitting room doorway. “How d’you make out then?”

  Mosby sickened as Finsterwald gave him a comradely smile for Control’s benefit, revealing some spectacular crown and bridge work as he did so. Typical fancy West Coast dentistry—the smile of a man who was willing to pay for his smile.

  “According to Mose we’re in business,” said Shirley.

  Morris looked at her. “But you’re not so sure?”

  She gave him back the look with interest. “I don’t know. But then I don’t know what the hell’s happening anyway.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “Just Audley doesn’t believe in the existence of King Arthur.”

  “The devil he doesn’t!” Morris turned towards Mosby. “Is that so?”

  Something stirred in Mosby’s subconscious as he met the man’s direct stare, but he had no time to identify it. “You want Audley to look for Badon, like Major Davies was looking, not for King Arthur—that’s what Finsterwald here briefed us to set up. If that’s what you still want—and if you’ve brought the stuff Harry promised—then I reckon we’re in with a chance. But Shirley’s right, the way she feels: it’s time someone explained why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

  Finsterwald emitted a derisive sound, half laugh, half snarl. “Oh, come on, Doc, be your age. You don’t expect the reason why to be part of the deal, do you? You different from the rest of us or something?”

  �
�Uh-huh. Not me, Harry. I’m not different.” Mosby kept his eyes on Howard Morris. “But this deal is different. And for my money so is Audley.”

  “I go along with that,” said Shirley. “I don’t know about King Arthur, but there’s something not quite right about Audley.”

  “You think he’s suspicious of you?” Morris frowned.

  “No, I wouldn’t say that.” She shook her head slowly. “I think he’s bought us so far… It was just—I don’t know— just the way he looked at each of us when Mose offered to help him fix the car. Like he was trying to recognise us…

  It wasn’t he was suspicious. He was more like kind of watchful.”

  Morris stared from one to the other in silence for a moment, as though trying to gauge the accuracy of their joint impression. “But you’re quite sure he wasn’t suspicious?”

  “Why the heck should he be?” said Mosby. “What’s a Home Office statistical analyst got to be suspicious about when a couple of Americans give him a lift?”

  Morris’s lips parted. “Always supposing he is a Home Office statistical analyst. Which he isn’t.”

  Mosby glanced angrily at Finsterwald, but before he could speak Morris intervened. “Don’t blame Captain Finsterwald. The Captain only did what he was told to do.”

  “Oh, just great.” Only Shirley could get so much scorn in three little words. “So now you’re going to tell us what he is?”

  “At the moment he’s exactly what he says he is: a man writing a history book on—“ Morris looked at Finsterwald questioningly, “—on who was it?”

  Finsterwald swallowed. “William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. Born about 1146, died 1219,” he said grudgingly, as though he didn’t like hearing himself admit any knowledge of such esoteric information. “Doc has the run-down sheet on him.”

  “On the level?” Shirley balanced the question delicately between insolence and a genuine request for confirmation.

  “William Marshall, that’s right.” Morris ignored her. “Audley started getting interested in Marshall when he was in the Middle East ten years back, studying crusader castles. He’s been working on him off and on ever since—couple of years ago when he was a visiting professor in Arabic studies at Cumbria University.”

  Mosby remembered the sandcastle, its meticulous layout, the careful counting off of the towers…William Marshall had been a crusader, and later on one of Richard the Lion-hearted’s top advisers, so the biographical sheet had stated. And the whole thing was crazy, except that he was beginning to lose the capacity of being surprised by anything.

  “And now he has a six-month furlough to complete his book.” Morris paused to nod at Shirley. “On the level.”

  “Uh-huh.” Her voice was almost neutral this time. “So he’s a real-life historian pretending to be a statistical analyst. And I was beginning to think he was King Arthur in disguise, maybe.”

  “Not quite King Arthur, Mrs Sheldon. But perhaps Merlin the Magician, that’s what we’re hoping.” Morris smiled at her, tolerantly, still unprovoked.

  “He’ll darn well need to be a magician,” said Mosby quickly, “if you want him to find Mount Badon for us.”

  “You think so?”

  Mosby weakened under the intensity of the dark eyes. “I’m not an expert on Arthurian history.”

  “But you’ve read the books on Davies’s list, Captain.”

  “Not all of them.” Mosby rallied. “You don’t become an expert on the Dark Ages in forty-eight hours by reading a few books, anyway. It’d need more like forty-eight months.”

  “Unfortunately we don’t have forty-eight months.”

  “How long do we have?”

  Morris shrugged. “That we don’t know. Perhaps no time at all. Certainly very little time.”

  “To do what?” asked Shirley. “To find this—Badon Hill place? Which Mose doesn’t think can be found at all?”

  “Is that what you think, Captain?” Morris paused. “That it cannot be found?”

  “Nobody’s found it yet. There’s no Badon on the map.”

  “But I understand people have suggested where it might be.”

  “Oh, sure—half a dozen places. But there’s no way of proving any of them… after fifteen hundred years.”

  “Except Major Davies thought differently.”

  “But Major Davies is no longer with us.”

  “Exactly. Which we are assuming is a case of cause and effect. All evidence that he was searching for Badon Hill was most expertly removed from his lodgings, and simultaneously he was also removed—equally expertly.”

  Finsterwald stiffened. “We found the plane?”

  “A portion of it.”

  “It was on the radio we’d given up the search,” said Mosby.

  “That was for public consumption. For the British—and others.” Morris’s voice hardened a fraction. “We got a piece Friday afternoon.”

  “Only a piece?”

  “The major debris is probably several miles to the west, in deeper water. The section we have was detached because of a violent internal explosion.”

  “So the bastards fixed him,” muttered Finsterwald. “And right on the goddamn base, too.”

  “They did. But that’s no concern of ours—Air Force Intelligence will deal with that when we give them the word, and not before. At the moment it’s an accident, with the normal accident procedures. Because the longer they believe they’ve pulled off the double, the longer we have to catch up on what they’re really doing.”

  They.

  What they are really doing.

  “And just who is ‘they’?” asked Mosby.

  Finsterwald gave a snort. “Now who d’you think has the know-how—and the gall—to knock down one of our planes in a NATO backyard? Harold Wilson?”

  Mosby gave him a half-smile. If UK Operations Control could take a bitching from Shirley in his stride, then he could take a squadron of Harry Finsterwalds with no trouble. “Yeah, well now you’ve mentioned him, Harry, I’d say he’s got the gall and MI6 has the know-how. Only I just can’t work out the connection between either of them and Badon Hill. But then the same applies to the KGB—Second Directorate, Clandestine Operations Division, that would be the one, I guess. Unless they’ve gotten themselves an Ancient British History Division, that is.” He looked back at Morris again. “But if you can’t answer that one—“

  “Or won’t,” murmured Shirley.

  “Or won’t—I’ll settle for an easier answer first.”

  “Which is—?” Morris regarded him with interest.

  “Which is—which side is Audley on? British or Russian?”

  “What makes you think he’s on either?”

  “You’ve practically said as much. So did Shirley—‘the way he looked at us’ she said. I don’t know about ‘watchful’, but whatever it was you remind me of him every time you look at me.”

  “Hah!” Morris beamed at him. “So you have an instinct—that’s very good… Not reliable, but still useful, an instinct. But it doesn’t tell you which side, eh?”

  Mosby decided to rise to the challenge. “British, for choice.”

  “More instinct?”

  “Uh-huh. Logic this time. The guys who took out Major Davies will be waiting for us to come knocking on their door. But you want them to go on hoping they’ve succeeded for as long as possible. Which means Audley isn’t on their team. And as Harry doesn’t fancy Mr Wilson as the villain of the piece that means he must be working for the British—Audley, I mean. Okay?”

  “Logical certainly.”

  “You want more?”

  “Whatever you’ve got.”

  “Okay. Theory this time. Shir—Mrs Sheldon and I represent a substantial outlay in Agency planning and resources. We’ve been over here four months just being ourselves, which is nice, but not very cost effective. And Captain Finsterwald arrived about the same time, and for a bet he’s been doing even less in Base Publicity. And he’s got a partner tucked away somewhere, so there are
at least four of us—which sounds like a Special Operations Unit.”

  Morris nodded cautiously. “Could be.”

  “That’s only Theory One. My Primary Operational Field is counter-intelligence—Mrs Sheldon’s too, for another guess. And Harry’s for a third.” He looked quickly at Finsterwald. “Though I wouldn’t be certain about that, maybe he’s just a strong arm boy.”

  Before Finsterwald could react Morris said: “Go on.”

  “That makes us a counter-intelligence SOU, which the book says is a reaction pattern to early warning of a KGB clandestine action. And what little you’ve actually admitted so far confirms that—plus what you haven’t actually denied. If this was Latin America or Africa it’d most likely be straight insurgency or urban terror, but over here the law enforcement is sophisticated and the people are—“

  “You’re beginning to lecture us, Captain.”

  Mosby grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. I was getting carried away.”

  “By your own brilliance.” Finsterwald yawned.

  “Which is better than getting bogged down in his own stupidity,” observed Morris mildly. “Theory two: A KGB clandestine action is about to start. You don’t have a theory of how King Arthur comes into it by any chance?”

  “According to Audley he doesn’t come in at all,” said Shirley. “He never existed, remember?”

  “And what do you say to that, Captain?”

  “Oh, I can account for that okay. It’s really pretty simple. But do I rate another question first?”

  “I guess you’ve earned it. So go ahead.”

  “The way Harry briefed us, we’re not liaising with Audley—right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Then we’re going it alone—and the British don’t know?”

  “That’s two questions.”

  “I’ll just take the last one, then. They don’t know what’s going on?”

  “So far as we know, they don’t. Theory Three?”

  Mosby drew a deep breath. “No more theories. Just I don’t like this deal any more.”

  “Reasons, then.”

  “Reasons? My God, aren’t they obvious? A KGB operation in Britain—we don’t know what, but we know there is one—and we’re not going to warn the British? Instead we’re going to try and sucker one of their agents to work for us without knowing it. You want I should like the job?” He stared at Morris in genuine surprise. “No way, Mr Morris, no way.”